Two Places
by SpiritualEnergy
Summary: Katara can't be in two places at once. Jet has always known this. [Jet & Katara]


**Title: **Two Places  
**Author: **SpiritualEnergy  
**Pairing/Characters: **Jet/Katara  
**Disclaimer:** Avatar: The Last Airbender © Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko  
**Rating: **T  
**Summary: **Katara can't be in two places at once. Jet has always known this.  
**Notes: **Takes place after _Crossroads_. This is for _Winter Ashby_, who asked for a Jet/Katara... a couple of months ago, I'm sure. Haha... it just got longer after awhile. Enjoy.

* * *

Katara rested her weary head against Aang's quiet body; her vision had been fuzzy since earlier that morning when Appa had landed, finally far enough from the Earth Kingdom to even be considered safe. On the other side of her, the quiet snores of the Earth King could be heard, and Katara knew he was coping just fine, even though earlier he was practically in hysterics about his home being taken by the firebenders. 

She coughed, a painful lump in her throat suddenly prominent. All that time when she was in that cave with Zuko–her hands on his scar, Oasis Water ready. She should've been smarter, should've been better. She should've known that it hadn't been the Kyoshi Warriors in the palace–if Suki or the others saw her now–wherever they were–what would they think?

Katara tried not to think about it right then–worrying about it wasn't helping the situation. It almost sounded as if Sokka was talking to her in her head.

Almost as if he heard her thoughts, Sokka shifted in his bedding in front of her, Toph not far away. Appa and Momo slept quietly together next to the small fire they had got going.

"Aang," Katara murmured, feeling her eyes droop as the quiet evening grew taller and taller over her head; the trees reflecting their shadows. "Are you awake?" she asked anxiously, hopefully.

Aang's face was pale, and his lips were cracked and the arrow on his head suddenly seemed so dark and big that it suddenly seemed like some sort of brand that he didn't deserve. He looked like he was sleeping; after pulling him into her arms on Appa, he had closed his eyes again and had not opened them since.

She sighed. It suddenly seemed warmer than it really was; her skin boiled underneath her heavy Water Tribe coat. Mulling over her thoughts, Katara inched away from the boy next to her and felt for his back.

Her lips curled as she realized Aang's wounds still hadn't healed.

Her mouth opened a little bit, trying to form words, trying to call to Sokka and Toph. Why wasn't the water working?

Panic gripped at her lungs and abruptly stopped her from breathing. How could she have not noticed that he wasn't healing–that Azula's lightning had obviously done more damage than any of them had thought?

Quickly, she pulled out her hip flask, almost splashing it all over herself in the process of her haste. She felt his forehead - he didn't seem to have a fever, but his lack of response to her fingers was not something Katara would easily let go.

Her hands glowed in the dark with her water; they looked almost ghostly as she brought her hands to rest them over Aang's back, traveling, gliding, searching, trying to heal the tender skin there. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes now as the terrible red stayed; pulling her sleeve up to take a swipe at her face, she grit her teeth in frustration. She wouldn't let Aang down–he'd never let her or the others down before.

"C'mon, Aang," Katara whispered furiously, and under her hand, the arrow on top of his head glowed a deep blue; she almost didn't notice it against her own hand, trying to coax the life back into him.

Yes – this was the something – the anything – that she had been hoping for. Any sign was a good sign, she decided. She was panting by now, and her chest was heaving hard, painfully. The insistent burning in her breast almost left her thoughts thin and frail to be strung up and carried off until she couldn't think anymore.

And then Katara was falling, and it was cold like the South Pole and heavy like a foot pressing down on her chest and scary like she was doing something wrong. And she felt her feet lift off the floor, head crashing through something loud and shattering as if her head had just been smashed through a window made of fiberglass –

And then she couldn't feel anything anymore.

With a groan, Katara pulled herself up, hands wringing at the ground underneath her, still anxious to grab onto something to make her stop falling. She pulling her hand up to her face to see dirt caught in her fingernails – she looked down to see her clothes bunched up around her legs and dark with sludgy mud.

Katara had no idea where she was.

Pulling herself together and gathering herself up to stand on her own wobbly feet, she looked around at her surroundings; the trees were taller than any others she had seen in a long time, and the sky was dense and overcast – and she was standing in the murky swamp water that made her grimace.

_What kind of place is this?_ She thought, and recoiled at the sudden call of a bird – deep and clear. Not like any bird she had ever heard before. She looked down at herself, and with a cold wave of her hands, tried to waterbend the sludge off her clothes.

And almost just as quickly, fell forward in a mess of limbs before she caught herself on a tree in front of her, bringing herself upright again.

"What?" she breathed in disbelief, and tried again, another flourish to her step. And again, she failed. Why couldn't she waterbend?

Lost and afraid, Katara didn't know what to do – the rest of the guys were no where to be seen, and without waterbending, what was she supposed to do?

_Stay calm, Katara_, she told herself. Maybe this was just a bad –

A large crash sounded behind her, a shadow creeping up on her from behind; something in the hand drawn back, as if it were about to strike with some sort of a sword –

- and then Katara screamed.

And then she was blindly throwing up her hands in front of her face, her heart pounding wildly and she felt like she was going to die and this could not be how it was supposed to end and –

"Get away!" Katara yelled, throwing her arms and legs out, flailing, throwing her body weight forward and back to try and knock the other person away – _don't let it be a sword don't let it be a sword don't let it be a sword, this person was hard to hit_ – just let her get a good kick just like Master Pakku had showed her and –

Something clasped around her wrists, leaving her hands useless as she brought up her legs to smash them into the other's stomach –

Feeling something connect, she heard the sound of splashing and she just hoped the person had dropped whatever was in their hand –

"Stop!" a deep, booming voice commanded. "Wait, Katara, stop -" The sound of her name almost had her body turning to surprised jelly. "- it's me," the voice said a little less menacingly now, and for the first time since her blind kicks, Katara felt herself opening her eyes, and with that same realization that something was very wrong, that the scowling person in front of her was not holding her still _because he was dead_ – "Jet."

His hands were suddenly up close to his face, palms up, as if he were surrendering to her. His twin hook swords were left forgotten under the muddy surface of the water to the point where Katara couldn't even see them anymore – leaving her with nothing but his face to stare at.

"J-Jet?" she asked hesitantly. Her legs seemed to be shaking, and her nails bit into the palm of her hand as she tried to call up the water she had become so familiar with over the last few months.

Her eyes swept over him, memorizing him – he looked the same, sounded the same; he even had that same red Freedom Fighter outfit she had come to recognize him by. She wondered what would happen if she reached out to touch him, if he would disappear just as her waterbending had.

Jet gave her a small smile in acknowledgment. "Hey, Katara." He took a sloppy step forward after collecting his weapon again, trudging out of the mud and over to find a piece of land for him to stand on. He turned to look at her again. "I didn't expect it was you who was making all those splashing noises."

Katara tried to swallow. "But weren't you..."

Jet blinked. "I guess you could say that," he said, as if knowing what she was thinking; for an instant, she wondered if he really could – if it was something he could do now after he had gotten hit with Long Feng's earthbending. "C'mon, follow me. It's not exactly safe around here."

Not taking the time to even look back at the trees where he had lept out at her, Katara followed him through the fog that had settled over them and the rest of the forest. With his back turned to her, it was almost as if he would disappear without another hint or warning, and she would be left to mourn for him again. It sent her thoughts swirling through her brain and caused the adrenaline to pump through her arms and feet until she felt she had goosebumps from their previous fight.

"Jet, what are you doing here?" Katara asked after they had walked past a gnarled tree that tried grabbing at her foot; this place, she reflected to herself, was dark and dank and it wasn't making her any more comfortable now that Jet had stopped and was looking at her without any expression whatsoever.

"You shouldn't be here, Katara. This isn't where you belong."

And before she could even respond, she knew he had taken the words right out of her mouth. He bit them out – bitterly, and now his body was tense and his shoulder was riding up until he was hunched up and his face took on that twisted quality until Katara almost believed he was that same brainwashed shadow he had been when she had met him again in Ba Sing Se.

And then he put a hand over his hand, and sighed a deep sigh that caused his shoulders to slump a little; and then Katara knew that he was the same Jet of the Freedom Fighters, and that he wasn't being controlled anymore. He was now standing in front of her, telling her this wasn't her place to be, telling her he was dead and that it wasn't safe – showing her the weary side to him that she had never really experienced before. It was new and fresh and haunted all at the same time.

"Tell me what's going on," Katara demanded, deciding not to dwell; she didn't understand, and what if this was some strange, made up dimension where she only had so many seconds to unhinge whatever secret it took before everything tore apart from the inside? "At Lake Laogai, you told me you were going to be okay... but you're not okay, are you?" she asked, almost choking; she felt the bile start to rise in her throat.

"I think there's a lot we need to talk about. So much has happened, right?" Jet asked, dropping his swords and sitting on a dead log that looked as if it were melted down and then put out to dry. "Azula did a pretty big number on Aang, didn't she?"

Katara stood in front of him, feet seeping down into the wet floor below her. It almost felt as if it wasn't real, and that he wasn't sitting right in front of her that very moment. "Yeah, and I'm really worried about him. That's why I have to find..." and then she trailed off, taking one step back, and already her hands were up and her eyes were clawing up and down his tired face. "How did you know that?" she asked, and then Jet was up and bringing his hand up as well; as if that would stop the frantic pacing of her heart beating against her ribcage. "You couldn't know about that!"

The shadows creeping along his face suddenly made his features seem stony and unfamiliar; he was far too tall for her taste. "I know about everything since Lake Laogai," he said, taking another step towards her. The shadow began to fall away, and his eyes narrowed and then he was suddenly back on the log again, his face in his hands. "Something went wrong."

The look on his face made her take a cautious step forward – what if this wasn't the Jet she knew? What if this was a foreign projection; a copy to scare her, like when they were at the swamp and the image of her mother was driven so far and sharp into her brain she felt like she could scream until it went away again?

But no. This couldn't be what she wanted to see; a carved out statue that resembled a friend that had fallen out of her hands, out of her reach. This couldn't be something of her imagination – it was too real and too bright along the edges. So she took another step closer, and leaned in until she was looking at his long fingers interlaced over his face.

"Is this the Spirit World?" she asked, suddenly feeling everything hit and collide into her; through her. "I can't even waterbend anymore."

"I know," he replied, taking a precious moment to look up at her with burning hollow eyes. "But I think it's a little different than that. It's too real – and you're here. I'm okay in the bad way."

Katara felt another lump in her throat. "How – how can that be a bad thing? What do you mean by different?"

"Not right. This place isn't like I had expected it to be."

"What do you mean?" Katara asked. He wasn't the same way she had remembered him; he looked and talked the same, but the way he spoke was almost as if he had experienced something that caused him to undergo some sort of change – he almost looked scared. Perhaps the Dai Li's brainwashing wasn't so wiped from his mind after all.

"After Long Feng used his earthbending to knock me down, I felt weird. Like I was leaving but not completely. Like I was moving to a new home. You know how we Freedom Fighters are – always going where we have to." He looked over at her, and he had that long stare that made Katara go cold. "Aang never finished his chakra control, did he?" he asked, and it wasn't really a question – the certainty was there like a flag atop a kingdom.

"No," she answered, and she bit her lip in anxiety. She wasn't sure what he was saying – his explanation was beginning to raise more inquiries from her – but it was starting to make her nervous. She wanted him to finish. "He didn't. When Azula attacked him, he had tried -"

"To go into the Avatar State. I know." His knowledge of things he couldn't possibly know began to creep up on her internal thoughts again.

"How?"

Jet shook his head, and sighed. There was that weariness again; the tired look he carried seemed to weigh down on him until he wasn't even the same Jet she remembered when he was – alive...

"That's just it," he said, his hand curling up into a fist. "I don't know how. The last thing I remember was getting hit. The next thing I know, it felt like I was watching the outside from an inside perspective. When Aang brought me back..." he clenched his fingers together, the wood under his hand looking as if it were about to splinter, "That's when the pull started. And then I was gone, but still inside someplace new. I was here."

Katara looked down at his hands before looking at her own – the ones that couldn't help her bend the water she felt she was practically apart of. "Jet, where exactly is 'here'?" This was beginning to make her think in so many ways that it made her feel as if she were thinking of different combinations to the same puzzle all at once, and the pieces just didn't fit.

And then Jet looked at her, and Katara really saw him that time – and it swiped at her painfully because it was that exact, knowing little smile he had when he had told her he was fine when he really wasn't.

"Aang."

Through the thick silence of the forest that had fallen over them, Katara bent her head back to look at him further.

"A-Aang? But why would I -"

"You said you couldn't waterbend, right?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest and looking like the leader he had always been – it looked so strange when he was doing it with her. To her. "Because this isn't the physical world. Nothing in here is in that world, right? I might not be a bender, but I know the rules."

"But you said we're inside Aang. When you say we're not in the physical world, you make it sound like we're in the..." she trailed off, noticing the knowing look he had plastered on his face.

"Spirit World. Like you said," Jet said, and he was looking down again, as if he was having trouble looking directly at her. "We might be. You know the legends – how the Avatar is the bridge to the Spirit World? This... seems different. In a way. But think about it, Katara... Aang's the most powerful bridge to here. We got here under those circumstances."

She felt comforted to know she wasn't here all alone; she never would've stopped to wish for Jet to be there – she would've imagined Sokka or Toph to be there, or Appa and Momo, or Aang. That was how it always was. But here Jet was, and she was just glad he was. "I guess so," she answered, suddenly feeling her wits and grabbing hold to them. "So what you're saying is that you think the Avatar State training Aang hasn't finished just... brought us here? Using Aang?"

It was still fuzzy and sour on her tongue, but Katara felt that the smaller pieces were slowly starting to come together.

"That's what I've come up with," he said. "After all, I've had all the time in the world to think things through." He got up, and starting walking further into the trees that floated over the top of him, their branches wide and giving off a threatening look as they penetrated the fog overhead. Katara followed after him, the atmosphere between them beginning to thin and disappear.

"Where are we going?" she asked, looking up at him. She was almost surprised to see him holding those same twin swords of his – his hands doing something other than clenching his fists or putting them through his hair.

"There's a cave up ahead. I've been staying there for the past couple of nights."

Katara let her eyes wander over the wooded area of the forest; little beady eyes peered out of the bushes and stared at her in wonder, and something yelled out from the distance and she couldn't tell if it was mostly bird or human – she wasn't keen on finding out, and so she walked a little faster until she was practically in front of Jet and leading the way for him. She felt naked and bare without being able to use her waterbending – she remembered Sokka telling her just this past year before they had first met Aang that she shouldn't be using those tricks so much. And now that she couldn't anymore, it almost felt like she was dependent on them.

Jet let out an amused snort from behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to find that he was raising his eyebrow behind her. "You don't have to be so worried, Katara. We can get out of this – just wait." He padded over and past her, but not before putting a hand – it felt so solid, she realized – on her shoulder for just a second.

It felt like some surreal universe where she wasn't even really there – it almost felt like she was being too calm, too rational. Too much thinking when she shouldn't be thinking at all – too much of Jet when he shouldn't even be there at all, but he wasn't even close enough for her to touch him now. And it was her fault, because she remembered that chest wound when Long Feng had hurt him and she hadn't done anything to make it better.

If she had never left home to become a better waterbender, what would she have been? A healer? A normal child? Would she have been different and less focused on her goals than before? Would she be like her mother?

Katara squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about crying because then Jet would see her and then she wouldn't be able to stop and then she would hug him and ask him not to leave and tell him just how sorry she was for not trying hard enough.

It was like a delayed reaction on her part; she wiped a hand over her eyes and curled her mouth into a tight frown – her skin suddenly felt too tight over her bones, but the sight of the cave slowed her wild track for just long enough for her to get a grip over herself and to just bite through it because she had always lived in the cold since she was young anyway.

Jet didn't seem to notice, because he just walked forward and said, "We're here," and let himself enter through the rocky opening.

The inside was small but large enough for leg space to where she could lie down and still have room to look up at the ceiling without her neck hurting.

Jet sat on one of the broken down rocks and set his weapons down, and he leaned back until he was resting against the stone wall and was looking up at something she couldn't see. He was silent for a moment as he closed his eyes, his quiet breathing the only sound she could hear besides the pounding in her chest. He opened his eyes again and let out a breath that she saw lift up into the air until it strung away into a wisp of nothing.

As Katara continued to look around, she found herself having a hard time in believing that this was where Aang went when he had needed to help those people at the village, to help Yue. To think that this world was somehow connected to Aang was almost frightening – the dark and the wet and the cold. It was unsettling to know that she had literally used him as an accidental bridge to get here without even meaning to.

"Pretty rotten place, huh? But it works, for now. What are you thinking?"

His words brought her back from wherever she was, and she looked over at him to see him looking back. "So this is where you've been?" she asked, deciding to ignore his last question so that she wouldn't have to think about putting her thoughts into a coherent sentence.

"For the last couple of days. Needed to move on – my last hideout was beginning to get all washed up with swamp water tides."

"Oh," she said, feeling sympathetic. Was this how he lived now that he couldn't anymore?

"Yeah," Jet replied, tilting his head back. "But that's not why we're here. I've got to find a way back for you to the others."

"But... what about you?" Katara asked. He gave her a blank stare, as if this wasn't something he wished to discuss. His face was slightly more ragged and there was a scratch along his cheek – he was doing that thing again, where he looked the same for awhile and then went away and another side took over. Katara had never really thought to ask what happened to the people who cross over besides the Avatar. "You just said that we've got to find a way to get back. That the Avatar State brought us here – something about the chakra flow, right?" Her clothes suddenly felt way too tight to be standing there in front of him and the emphasize on the word we wasn't lost on him. "If we came here in the same way, we can both get out in the same way." Her determination pooled and burned in the pit of her stomach, and it almost hurt to watch him look at her in that blank, uneven way.

Jet's stare held her there, just like it had always done in the past. "Katara, you know you're the only thing that's still the same here. I'm glad."

That hadn't been what she had expected him to say, and she felt her cheeks redden a little... like they had done in the past. Far in the past. Much too far. "Of course I'm the same, why wouldn't I be?" she asked.

"Because, unlike everything here, you still have what you need to get back. I can't come."

Katara swallowed painfully and her mind suddenly flashed back to that little goodbye smile. "Why not? What do I have that you don't?"

By that time, he was already peeling away his wet armor and tossing it across the dirty rocks. He placed a hand over his chest, and when he moved it away, Katara could see nothing besides him, unlike that time at Lake Laogai when –

There was a shake and a rattle and a rupture.

"A body."

Pain jumped and vibrated between them. Katara could suddenly feel the cave dirt beneath her feet as if she had stepped out of her shoes. The walls seemed to close in around them as she tried to think of something to say that would make a difference.

The sky outside darkened into a deep maroon. "Longshot and Smellerbee," she said, remembering how they had told them to leave and that they would take care of things.

"Right," Jet said; the lack of the hole on his chest seemed to even impress him, because he still had his hand placed over the skin. "I'd left them long before they took me back home."

Home. For the first time since she had been thrown here, another image of Zuko flared up in her head, and then died away before the picture of a smaller Jet reached her, staring past her to a fiery town that was being burnt to the ground. Her guilt started to claw at her again; she didn't know what was worse – the fact that she almost healed Zuko's scar, or the fact that she hadn't thought of him as part of the Fire Nation in that moment when she was prepared to.

"There has to be something we can do," she stated, hoping he would look at her and agree for once during this meeting. Or whatever it was.

Jet sighed, his chest moving with his breath. "I don't think you understand, Katara," he said, pulling on his red vest and armor to cover up what was not there. His eyes grew dark and there was pain that swallowed up the rest of his thinned face. "The reason why I'm here – the only reason..." he stressed, seeing the look on her face; as if she were ready to disagree. "Is because of that water. If I hadn't been here when you'd used it for Aang -" The words were being stressed again, "- it would've worked. And he would be awake right now. I shouldn't be here."

His honesty was sharp and rang in her ears because he had never been so painfully truthful before, even when he had been relieved of the Dai Li's control in his final moments. He had lied when they had first met, and he had brought something forth from inside of her when she had seen him crushed and brainwashed.

She should've used the Oasis Water on him when she had the chance. Now it was too late.

Messy and wet, tears started to sting at her eyes as he began to get up, wiping the dirt from his pant leg. "You can't mean that..." she started, and his snort was almost amused. "You can't just give up! I thought Freedom Fighters went by that!"

He looked older than ever now, and his anger flashed up to meet her eyes. "You think I haven't tried that? You seemed to have forgotten that my enemy has and always will be the Fire Nation, including Zuko." The look he gave her suddenly had her shrinking down another foot, and she could feel his resentment coming off of him in waves. The ground seemed to be closer than it really was. "I didn't want this – do you really think I've given up just because my body is six feet under? Think again, because as long as you're here, there's no such thing as giving up." He let his shoulders roll until he was moving his whole body to the cave entrance, and before she could say anything, he was already strolling out.

Katara let herself jump beyond the numb place in her mind as she let herself once again be led by him. The thought that he had tried to find a way out of this place only to fail had her head pounding.

The trees seemed even more menacing now that it was darker outside. She wondered if time moved differently here than back with her friends – it had only seemed like a short while ago since she had met up with Jet, and already the sky was dark with the moon shining overhead. She wondered what seeing Yue right now would bring.

Before long, her shoes were damp and her clothes seemed to be weighing her down again, and she looked up and realized that both she and Jet were back at the swampy lake that had had them throwing blows at each other.

"Look, Katara," Jet said, his face illuminated over the murky water and the shimmer of the moon's light. "There just isn't any other way, alright?" he said. For one quiet, repressed moment, it seemed as if he were trying to convince himself and not just her. "If there were some way for me to do it, I would come back and help you, okay?" The anger in his voice was coming back again, and she found that if she could, she would pin him to the trees with her waterbending and force him to listen to her so she could tell him everything she needed to – wanted to. "But it's not enough."

She looked at him, and it was suddenly painful to look at him directly because she realized no one knew this as well as him. He knew better than she did that the Oasis Water hadn't been meant for him; not even when there was still a chance for it to be. This was his way of telling her that he knew; the faint sound of the water below their feet lapped at her thoughts, rushing passed her and meeting up against him on the other side of her vision.

Almost as if it was just the water rising up to crash into her, she realized that she was finally crying – it felt horrible and better all at once because she was crying over him, like she hadn't been before, when she was still too shocked to believe this was him. Was this the way she would remember him? Forgiving her for not saving him? For not letting him touch her the way she had touched him?

"Hey," he was saying, softly, comforting her for something he didn't have to. "It'll be okay." He said that little phrase over and over again as if he were trying to make it true – for her. "I'll be fine." It was the same phrase he had told her when he had been laying there dying; when he tried lying to her to make her feel better, only to not succeed because Toph was there to tell her the truth and because she could feel him for herself, and not even his lying or that little twig he liked to chew on could change that.

Hook swords splashing once again into the swamp for she didn't know how many times, hands reached up and were placed on her back, settling onto her and pulling her forward into the solid and deep and _real_ feel of him. Her head rested against that chest that he had shown her, the lack of pumping blood making her reach her own hand up and grip at his armor until she was crying on his shoulder.

He let one of his hands hold her own over his chest, and he was still comforting her even as he was ready to take her back to a place he couldn't follow. He could be selfish like before, back at the tree house – he could keep her here if he wanted to, just so he could get back at her – he could lie again, if he were still a liar. But he wasn't doing that – he was letting go of any chance he had and not blaming her. It swirled and churned and the feel of his cheek on her hair was too much.

And then her hand was going through his chest, his fist still clasped over hers so she couldn't free it. Breathing hard and letting herself pull her face away from his shoulder, she stared up at him and realized that her hand was glowing a faint green, which lifted up to them and had his features glowing along with it.

And then in that second that was shorter but taller than any other, she knew she would miss him.

Using her hand to grab at the water inside of him, Jet let her pull it out of him as if she were waterbending again; the water she was taking from him was different, and she wondered if this was the special properties she had been told about. Holding a form even beyond the physical world.

Her hand became tight and clenched within his palm, and his other hand was on her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

The glow began to overflow past them and up until she could barely make him out anymore, and she saw him smile and nod his head just a little as she gripped him a little harder.

Jet said, "You'll be fine."

And then everything was gone.

* * *

Everything was sharp and bright and loud and she could hear Toph and Sokka's bickering perfectly, and Momo and Appa's small and heavy steps seemed to stamp down into her as if the world was staring down at her –

- and she could suddenly see clearer than ever before as an outstretched hand came down for her, and quietly, Katara took her first chance and breathed out to the smiling person in front of her with memories she both loved and hated coming back –

"Aang."


End file.
